The word “budget” was never much in my vocabulary until the last year or so. I struggled with math in school (and, therefore, other subjects that relied on math, such as statistics and economics), and budgeting just never quite made sense in my mind. I remember when my fiancé sat me down and adapted his budget spreadsheet in Excel to make a new version for me, and it was just…over my head. I’ve never been as good with money as I could be, but I’m not financially irresponsible, so I always managed to scrape by. Then, I learned about You Need a Budget* (also known as YNAB) – I don’t even remember how anymore – and decided to give it a try.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been about a year-and-a-half since I started working from home full-time, running my virtual assistant business as my main focus and source of income. That was back in September of 2016, and I spent several weeks crunching the numbers and thinking about how best to make that happen. Prior to working from home full-time, my virtual assistant business was run on simple straight hourly work, with a flat rate for all services. But, part of my plan to be able to work from home included switching from straight hourly to monthly retainer packages.

I don’t think you need me to tell you that running a business is hard work. Like, really hard. It’s always hard, but I think it’s especially hard when you’re a solopreneur like me, because you have no one to fall back on, no one to swoop in when you can’t get to something, and no one to tell you you’re doing a good job. With all of that in mind, it’s important to make things easier when and where you can, which is why online business tools are so important.

I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that 2017 was a pretty challenging year for me, both in my personal life and in my business life. During late fall/early winter in 2016, I was happily planning ahead for 2017 – with the help of Amber McCue’s Planathon event – and setting goals for the year (for my business – I’ve never been too big on New Year’s resolutions and things like that). Into the first…oh, I don’t know, at least quarter of the year, this kind of optimism about how the year would go – my first full year working from home full-time – persisted. But then, around May or June, things started to go a bit downhill.

I was just recently asked about this (again), so it seems like a timely post to write! I started my virtual assistant business in August of 2015, after my online acquaintance Meg Bateman commented on my post in a Facebook group I was in (for food bloggers) and told me to consider it. I grew my business part-time on the side while I worked a full-time job, and then, in September of 2016, I made the leap and started working from home full-time with my VA business as my main source of income. I’ve been fortunate enough to be doing that ever since!

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I'm Leslie, a former middle school teacher turned editor and Teacher-Author. I'm here to help female entrepreneurs improve their writing and to help teachers around the world save time on lesson planning. I'm glad you're here!

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About Leslie

I’m Leslie, a former middle school teacher turned editor and Teacher-Author. I’m here to help female entrepreneurs improve their writing and to help teachers around the world save time on lesson planning. I’m glad you’re here!